SUDBURY, Ont. - A 76-year-old Sudbury woman is under investigation after shooting dead a black bear that was pestering a young mom in her area.

After a summer filled with nuisance bears in Ontario's north, Jessica Stoner, a new mom with a seven-week-old baby, approached elderly neighbours Ludger Leblanc and Bertha Saikkonen for help in dealing with a pair of brazen bruins in her yard last week.

"They're eating 20 feet off my back door, all night and all day," says Stoner. "I'm at home with a newborn, because my husband works out of town, and what really concerns me is that these bears have no fear."

People in the area have been setting off bear-bangers and firing shotgun blasts to spook the animals on a near-nightly basis, she says, but they don't seem to spook. A call to the ministry of natural resources didn't help since they said the bears were more interested in eating the acorns in her yard.

She didn't think the situation warranted a call to 911, but after waking once again to a year full of bears, she "I thought, enough is enough, and went over to Bertha's."

Saikkonen says her 82-year-old husband went out first, with a 30-aught-six rifle, and fired a warning shot to scare off the bears. One of the bears took off, but the other wouldn't leave, she says.

"When I got there Ludger handed me the gun," says Saikkonen, who is 76. "I tried the first time and missed, but with the second shot I got him down."

It wasn't Saikkonen's first shot — she is an Anishinabe woman — her maiden name is Debassige — who has done a fair amount of hunting over the years. But it might be her last.

The noise prompted another resident to call Greater Sudbury Police, says Saikkonen, and soon enough "a whole bunch of cruisers were out here."

She and her husband were charged with careless use of a firearm and "they took all our guns away," she says.

The couple feels the police reaction was harsh. "They're treating us like criminals," says Leblanc.

We found out later in the week that eight other bears have been shot in this area, and we're the only ones who have been charged

Saikkonen says they are also being singled out. "We found out later in the week that eight other bears have been shot in this area, and we're the only ones who have been charged."

The only reason she shot the bear, she says, is because Stoner "was terrified," she says. "She was having nightmares because she's got this new baby and her husband is away."

She and Leblanc were also under the impression that Stoner and her husband had "got permission from the MNR to shoot the bear," she says.

And landowners do have "the legal right to kill a bear in defence of property," according Jolanta Kowalski, spokesperson with the ministry of natural resources, but it must be done "humanely and safely in accordance with local bylaws that cover the discharge of firearms."

The MNRF strongly recommends "only an experienced hunter or trapper dispatch a bear," and reminds residents "to immediately report any bears that are killed in defence of property to your local ministry office in person or by telephone."

Failure to report a shooting is a violation of the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act, Kowalski notes.

Despite their trouble, Stoner says she's grateful for the couple's help, as "it's scary when you start getting outnumbered by bears."

Bears have been conspicuous in many areas of Greater Sudbury lately, with 192 sightings posted at the city's online Report-A-Bear map over the Labour Day weekend, but it's a much calmer season than last year when many animals were trapped or killed.

No bears have been relocated or taken to a sanctuary this year by the MNRF, according to Kowlaski, while province-wide the ministry has trapped "just over 20 bears in 2016, including some bear cubs that were then moved to a wildlife rehabilitation centre."

Calls to the Bear Wise reporting line, meanwhile, have dropped by more than half compared to last year: In 2015, there were more than 2,000 calls to the Bear Wise hotline from the Sudbury area between April 1 and Sept. 6. This year, that number is 867 for the same time period.

At this time of year, bears are dining on fall food sources like acorns, chokecherries and apples. And while the berry crops may have suffered from drought conditions earlier in the summer, the apple crops have fared much better, says Kowalski.

For Stoner, it's not that she felt an imminent threat from the animals in her yard. But she has felt under siege, and she does fear a future incident.

"It's fine when they have a food source, but what happens when that's gone?" Stoner says. "They're going to try to come inside."

The ministry spokesperson says it's difficult to quantify how many bears might have been shot by landowners this year, as "not all property owners report to the MNRF that they have dispatched a bear."

Incidents of attacks have been rare. Kowalski says there was the one instance in Sudbury of a dog being fatally mauled by a bear, although MNRF assistance was not requested by police in that case.

On Labour Day weekend, two female hikers and their dogs were "involved in a bear encounter" in Mississagi Provincial Park, north of Elliot Lake, she says. MNRF staff are currently investigating that incident.

The shooting incident in Sudbury is also under investigation, says Kowalski.

Leblanc and Saikkonen may have had their guns taken away by authorities, but they were allowed to keep the bear itself, which they say was a yearling sow.

By Friday Leblanc's son Joe was already busy butchering the animal and turning it into spiced sausage.